Kedumim Mayor Oziel Vatik on Saturday evening urged Israel’s security establishment to demolish all illegal shops in the Palestinian village of al-Funduq in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack there in which three Israelis were killed.
“I am pressing on all levels for the immediate destruction of the illegal shops in the village, and we will not stop until it is carried out,” said Vatik, whose community is located 1.5 miles northeast of al-Funduq.
The shops “are illegal, they create a safety and security hazard and their destruction must be a clear message to our enemies, and to us, that our blood is not [shed] in vain,” stated Vatik. “I also told the heads of the [security] systems: If necessary, we will go out as a public to fight for their closure.”
The terrorists who carried out the shooting that killed Rachel Cohen, 73, Aliza Rice, 70, and Israel Police Master Sgt. Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, 35, on Jan. 6 remain at large. Seven more people were wounded in the attack.
On Saturday, Israel Defense Forces Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth extended a closure order for all shops in al-Funduq until Wednesday. The order, which was set to expire over the weekend, was extended following pressure from Israeli residents of the area, i24News reported.
“The closure order that was supposed to expire tomorrow continues. I am in constant contact with senior officials in the army, police and security establishment and am working to change the security reality on the ground,” Vatik wrote in a message to residents on Saturday night.
The Hamas terror group on Jan. 8 claimed responsibility for the attack. The Samaria “operation” was carried out jointly with Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a “military arm” of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, according to a Hamas statement.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz condemned the Hamas attack as “an act of war” that will be “met with a decisive response.”
Following the attack, Winkelstein’s family told the Makor Rishon weekly that the response should be the complete closure of the shops in al-Funduq.
“We don’t need to pave the al-Funduq bypass road now, but [rather] to make the entire village disappear; to destroy the shops,” Harel Winkelstein stated, in reference to the planned construction of a new route that avoids the area.
“Every place from where they attack needs to be destroyed before they attack again. It’s important to me that the political echelons and the security establishment hear this,” he added.
